CNBC: Wall Street Not Measuring Up in Analysis of AAPL

By John Martellaro

Sep 30th, 2008 5:00 PM EDT

Wall Street may not be measuring up when it comes to their reports on Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its fundamentals,
according to Jim Goldman with CNBC on Wednesday. The issues are perspective, balance, and true analysis.

What triggered Mr. Goldmanis concern was downgrades early in the week by RBC and Morgan stanley, then contradicting reports from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

In addition, a recent ChangeWave study suggested that fewer people are likely to buy a Mac laptop in the next 90 days, but the number was a very slight reduction. "I donit know about you, and I hardly want to be the one trying to accentuate the positive, but it seems those declines are very, VERY slight, and in an economy like this one, a miniscule decline for expensive products in the consumer electronics space might actually be good news," Mr. Goldman wrote.

However, what really annoyed Mr Goldman was that some analysts are ratcheting up their expectations of Appleis gross margins, despite Appleis steadfast claim of 30 percent. If analysts report that Apple wonit meet their own expectations of 33 percent, when Apple holds to 30 percent, thatis a problem.

"I know Wall Street has a job to do. So does Apple. Apple routinely sandbags numbers, I believe, to lower expectations so it can ibeat the Streeti when it releases earnings. They need to do better offering realistic guidance.

"But the Street also needs to do a better job managing its own expectations, and offering meaningful analysis of the data, not just the data itself. Both sides of the story," Mr. Goldman advised.